thing talked of among their Episcopalian friends, as if it were some great matter, examined it more carefully, but found no solution of the mystery. At last the explanation came. It be. gan to be understood among the benighted outside of the Episcopal communion, that those twelve pages from the Church Review were actually written by a bishop. Had the article. proceeded from a deacon, or even from a priest, though there would undoubtedly have been some virtue in it--some mystic validity-over and above the appreciable force of the reasoning, nobody would have thought much of it. But an article written by a bishop is quite another affair. An article penned by the identical fingers through which is dispensed all the spiritual grace that can get access to a diocese-an article written by one to whom belongs the same authority over the Christian commonwealth with that which was committed by Christ himself to his Apostles,-carries with it, of course, in the feeling of all true "Churchmen" a validity far beyond what belongs to any performance of priest or deacon. For some reason the writings of bishops, however undoubted their succession from the Apostles, are not incorporated with the volume of canonical scripture. Yet it seems to us that in the primitive age an autograph epistle from Paul to the Church at Corinth, or to the Churches of Galatia, could hardly have been received with a more unquestioning admiration than that with which the great body of the inferior clergy and the laity of the AngloCatholic body receive, in this unbelieving age, whatever a bishop condescends to write-unless indeed the bishop happen to be an "Evangelical," in which case his writings can hardly pass for more than their intrinsic value.

But the zeal which distributed this tract so freely among the pastors of Congregational Churches was not wholly according to knowledge. Small reverence have those Puritan wights for diocesan bishops pretending to have inherited by succession the authority of the twelve Apostles. And when the authorship of this little tract began to be divulged, it had no other effect on them than to explain why it was that the Episcopalians so admired it, and to put them upon giving it, for the sake of their sectarian friends and neighbors, a little more attention than it would otherwise have commanded. Of late, as our readers may have observed, we have abstained from whatever might tend to a revival of the controversy with our friends of the Anglican communion. But there is a time for all things; and perhaps it is now time to handle once more the points of difference and dispute between Anglicanism and Pure Christianity. For ourselves we are men of peace, overflowing with sentiments

of kindness, even toward those who are continually charging us with all manner of heresy and schism, and who are laboring to heap all sorts of dishonor on the graves of our New England Fathers. Controversy with our neighbors, is quite against our nature. We are lovers of "repose." But we yield to the exigency. A Congregational pastor, one of the many to whom the tract before us was gratuitously distributed, returns the favor. He reviews the Reviewer-not in the leisure of prelatical dignity, but amid the diversified labors of a parochial charge-not with original researches among the folios of the fathers and the councils, but with references only to such books as are at hand in a rural pastor's study. If he seems to write without due respect to the official dignity of the author, whose work he has taken in hand, let it be remembered that a Congregational pastor, by the theory of his office, is precluded from ranking himself among the "inferior clergy," and is either nothing at all, or every inch a bishop, equal in rank with the highest.

It is reported of a venerable clergyman, that on a certain occasion, in a public prayer, he uttered these words: "O Lord, grant that we may not despise our rulers; and grant also that they may not act so that we can't help it." If for the words, "rulers," were substituted the words, "Episcopalian brethren,' this petition would often express our thought. For though there are many persons in the Episcopal sect, whose intellectual and religious character commands the highest respect, yet those who are commonly called High-churchmen-more significantly described as "Young Rome," do continually provoke the contempt of all, whose religion does not consist chiefly in a sentimental or sensuous formalism. There are many Episcopal clergymen who earnestly seek the spiritual welfare of men; who make the religion of the New Testament the great theme of their teaching; and the conversion of men by the Word and Spirit of God, and their advancement in real piety, the leading object of their efforts as ministers of Christ. But there are others and the number does not diminish, except as they are converted, or go to their own place in the Romish Churchwho are particularly zealous in respect of "days and moons and bodily exercise," as the Galatians were before their conversion from paganism. They preach and write concerning the forms and order of the church, substituting outward ceremonies for the inward life of piety. The apostolic succession, regeneration by baptism, and the visible unity of the church, are the magic themes by which they charm their hearers into the sleep

of religious indifference, or awaken in them the true spirit of bigotry and sectarianism. These dogmas are reiterated by every new recruit to the ranks of Young Rome, with as much vain confidence, as if they had not been refuted for a thousand times. But as clergymen of that sort, according to their own principles, have been regenerated only by baptism, it is perhaps too much to expect them to speak of spiritual things; "they are foolishness to them." It is natural for them to extol the "instrument" of their regeneration, and the mystical influence of ministerial grace, which introduced them to the communion of the one Čatholic church.

We do not propose to offer any argument, to show that the Apostles had no successors; or that a ministry ordained by bishops, descended in an unbroken chain from the Apostles, is a figment, and no fact. These things have been often proved, and are freely admitted by intelligent Episcopalians. We only wonder that the "inferior clergy" have the presumption to reassert that fiction; more especially as it is not found in the prayer book. "There is not a minister in all Christendom who is able to trace up with any approach to certainty his own spiritual pedigree.' "Who can undertake to pronounce that during the long period usually designated as the Dark Ages, no taint of informality was ever introduced? Irregularities could not have been wholly excluded without a perpetual miracle; and that no such miraculous interference existed, we have even historical proof." Such is the language of Archbishop Whately, (Kingdom of Christ, pp. 182, 183,) and multitudes of bishops and other clergy agree with him. It would be a needless labor to examine the list, or catalogue of names, which to pedigreeloving Episcopalians, constitutes the chain of succession from the Apostles to the present time. That chain has its beginning in the twilight of fable, and leads down into the confusion of total darkness.

But there are other "weak and beggarly elements" which invite our attention, besides the Apostolic succession. The writer in the Church Review has made some statements, which indicate "no very profound study of Ecclesiastical History," but rather a vain reliance on the assumptions of those who affirm the limitation of the blessings of salvation, and of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, to Prelatic or Episcopal churches. His object appears to be, to show that the visible "unity of the church in the Episcopate," and the "historical sequence of doctrine" running back to the days of the Apostles, as set forth in written creeds, are the means by which the church has been kept free, or recovered, from heresies; and that those denom

inations of Christians, which do not recognize the unity of the church in the Episcopate, and which introduce other creeds, or summaries of fundamental doctrine, than those used from the times of the Apostles, have not been, and cannot be, recovered from heretical sentiments. This is "the same old tune" with new words. It means that the Episcopal sect is "the one visible church," in which alone is unity, and purity of doctrine, and an apostolic ministry; and that all other churches are without a valid ministry, full of confusion, and advocates of grievous fundamental errors. It is attempted to illustrate and confirm all this grave nonsense, by contrasting the action of the ancient church, in respect of the Arian and Pelagian heresies, with the action of the Congregational churches in New England, respecting Unitarianism, and what the writer calls errors in regard to the guilt attaching to man's moral nature.

The writer in the Church Review says truly, that 'the existence of heresy does not disprove the divine life of any body claiming to be a part of the church; but the true test for a church, is the ability to throw off heresy, without being pervaded by its influence; "the healthy body sloughs off the gathering and is soon whole." He goes on to say, that the church in the fourth and fifth centuries, was able to deal effectually with heresy, because she had two things to fall back upon, viz: her organic unity, and the written creeds used in the church from the times of the Apostles.

It is needful here to ascertain what is intended by this "one organism," by which the church could exercise such a potent influence in purging herself of heresy. It means evidently a visible body, having lineal descent and succession from the Apostles; in the words of Archdeacon Manning,-"the threefold orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, are the ground-work and essential element of the system." If this is the essential element, the basis of the visible church, to us it is "the baseless fabric of a vision." It is the doctrine of the Reviewer, and of all Romanizing Episcopalians, that where an Apostolic ministry, i. e. a ministry of three orders, is maintained, there is an integral part of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. They say, "the bishop is in the church, and the church in the bishop." "In every several church, the successor of the Apostles is the visible centre, type, source, and bond of unity. And for collective unity, all the bishops of the Catholic church at large are one college." (Manning's Unity of the Church, p. 131.) If now the essential element and ground-work of the organic unity of the church was the existence of a ministry of three

orders, then the heretics of the fourth and fifth centuries, did not forfeit that unity; for none of them denied that doctrine. So long as they had a ministry of three orders, they were an integral part of the holy catholic church; they did not deny its fundamental doctrine of visible unity. How then could the ancient church deal with these heretics, except by arraying unity against unity? a sort of Kilkenny combat, which would prove fatal to the whole organism. We leave it to the "inferior clergy" to explain that. Indeed, if the apostolic succession is the centre, type, source, and bond of unity, while that doctrine is maintained, there can be no division in the body for heresy or anything else. If the pillars of the house are unshaken, the house cannot fall; unless it be divided. against itself, and then it cannot stand.

We are prepared to say that it was not owing to any visible unity, such as is above described, that the church was able to deal effectually with heresy. There is no moral force, or disciplinary power in such a unity; especially against those who neither denied nor doubted its essential truth. There is the clearest historical evidence, that the very general assertion in the fourth and fifth centuries, of the unity of the episcopate in the three orders, did not secure uniformity of discipline, or a general agreement in doctrinal or practical truth. The multitudinous nameless heresies which infested the church, in that and later ages, "began, continued, and ended," without being checked or cured by any influence arising from such a unity of the church. The testimony of the most eminent of "the fathers" respecting the general corruption of bishops, clergy and people, is astounding, and almost incredible to us poor people who gather our knowledge of piety and the church chiefly from the Scriptures. We quote from Coleman's Primitive Church, (pp. 287, 303, 304,) a few passages. Chrysostom says,"As things now are, all is corrupted and lost. The church is little else than a stall for cattle, or a fold for camels and asses; and when I go out in search of sheep, I find none." Formerly the church of Christ was distinguished from the world by her piety. But now are Christians as base, and if possible, some worse than heretics and heathen. No language can describe the angry contentions of Christians, and the corruption of morals that prevailed, from the time of Constantine to that of Theodosius." Gregory Nazianzen says,-" A bishop is easily found. No preparation is requisite for his office. They are teachers while yet they have to learn the rudiments of religion. Yesterday impenitent, irreligious; to-day priests; old in vice; in knowledge young." "I am worn out with contending against